Cleanup Draws A Crowd

352 Volunteers Work At Riverside Park

March 19, 2006|By Sallie James Staff Writer

CORAL SPRINGS — For years, Riverside Park has been the busiest cleanup site in Broward County during the annual Waterway Cleanup, but this year even more volunteers showed up than organizers dared to expect.

"We had 352 volunteers," site coordinator Roy Gold, a Coral Springs city commissioner who has run the site for 11 years, said with pride. Riverside Park historically has drawn more volunteers than any of the 31 cleanup sites in the county.

Gold said the site, at 205 Coral Ridge Drive, ran out of T-shirts, registration cards and plastic bags. Participants collected enough trash from city waterways to fill a 30-cubic-yard trash bin, he said. The cleanup was on March 4.

Among the finds? A trampoline (it was in pieces but it was the whole thing); a water trike with broken wheels; a couple of couches, a roof vent; plastic, wicker and metal chairs; a few boats; a washing machine; bottles; wood and a city sign, Gold said.

"They brought up a ton of stuff," he said.

Sponsored by the Marine Industries Association of South Florida, the effort attracts thousands of volunteers. This year, 3,000 volunteers participated countywide, said Melanie Daily, public relations and event coordinator for the association.

Total trash collected countywide was 3,000 tons, or 62 tons more than was picked up last year, Daily said.

"We found everything from old cans and bottles, bicycles, tires and a lot of vegetation from Hurricane Wilma," Daily said.

The most unusual finds included two wild boar skulls, in Fort Lauderdale and Plantation, she said.

"This year our event was the kickoff event for the Great American Cleanup in Broward County."